Page 5 of A Very Armitage Christmas
“Or maybe a pair of tweezers?” I added, still yelling. “You know, since pliers might be bigger than necess—”
The door flung open, and Nate appeared wrapped in a bed sheet, his hair tousled and his cheeks and lips bright red. “Will you shut up?” he hissed.
I wondered if I looked like that after Matthew fucked me. Interesting thought, and my cock gave a little twitch of interest, but I had to deal with first things first.
“Once you get out here, I will. Get dressed, for fuck’s sake.”
Nate made a face and slammed the door again, but surprisingly, he appeared again in less than a minute, his jeans and boots and a t-shirt on, zipping up his jacket as he shut the door again.
“What, no Ian?” I asked, hoping I hid my relief. Ian usually followed Nate everywhere like a lost puppy.
Nate clumped down the steps. “He’s sulking over the tweezers thing.” He ducked his head to try to hide his grin, but I caught it anyway. “Besides, he’d much rather not know whatever it is you’ve done this time. Unless he needs to?”
I hesitated. Yeah, maybe, but…Jesus, I really wanted to handle this myself without getting a pair of overprotective, overdramatic alphas involved. They got so worked up over a little necromancy.
“Not yet,” I hedged. “Come take a look first.”
Nate followed me around the side of the cabin and into the woods. I headed for the area behind the pack house, where a large garden had gotten larger since Nate and I joined the pack. We both grew herbs for a variety of rituals and spells, and I’d made friends with the forest on the Armitage territory, convincing it to help me clear another half-acre for the purpose, with the young trees loosening their roots to allow me to transplant them gently, and the bigger trees shoving their roots up through the ground to shift a couple of bigger boulders and fallen trunks so I could get those out of the way. I’d also tapped into the life forces of the forest that afternoon, hoping to stimulate some extra growth in the garden despite the freezing weather.
“What am I going to be looking at?” Nate asked, with offensive — but, honestly, understandable — wariness.
“Remember how I was going to try to keep the garden a little more active even though it’s winter?”
“Yeah, and? It didn’t work? Seriously, Arik?” Nate demanded, a note of exasperation creeping in. “You got me out of bed on a freezing-cold night to come look at some wilty hyssop?”
“It worked.” I cleared my throat and bought a little time by climbing over a fallen tree branch, pretending that took my concentration. I could’ve just leapt over it like the bobcat I was, but I needed a minute. Nate scrambled over with even less grace, and hisoofas he bonked his shin wasn’t a pretense. “It worked really well. Half the garden was half-dead. I…summoned life back into it.”
“Well, great. We can put landscaping on our list of services on the website. Maybe you can start mowing lawns, too. Can I go back to bed?”
“That’s beneath the dignity of a pack leader’s mate. But we should hire Luke out to mow lawns without a shirt on.” Ian’s sidekick Luke, a mountain of a werewolf with very little to say, had a jaw-dropping set of pecs and abs.
Nate stopped, turning his head to stare at me. “That’s actually — I’ll put that on the website too. I think the property taxes are past due.”
So was an explanation, and Nate had to get one before we got closer to the scene of the…accident. “So, all the plants came back to life. Even though they were basically dead. It was really strong magic. Bordering on necromancy, even though it shouldn’t be quite the same thing for plants.”
Come on, Nate, come on, make the connection, don’t make me say it…
When it twigged, he stopped again, suddenly, his foot still in the air.
“Oh,fuck,” he said, with feeling. “Arik, no. Come on. What else came back to life?”
I crossed my arms, looking casually into the forest, because I couldn’t quite look Nate in the eye. Was this…shame? Not a feeling I had a lot of experience with. And I didn’t like it at all. I had a friendly rivalry with Nate, that hadn’t always been so friendly. He wasn’t myfriend. “As far as I know, only a couple of rabbits? And maybe a deer. And…possibly a bear. It made a lot of noise in the underbrush. I think it followed the rabbits.”
“You think.” Nate’s flat tone knocked those uncomfortable feelings into overdrive. He shouldn’t be fucking disappointed in me. He shouldn’t have expectations that couldbedisappointed. “You think there’s an undead bear. Maybe right behind me in the bushes, just for example?”
“I think even you might notice that,” I snapped, discomfort pushing me into defensive mode. I recognized it, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. “Are we going to work on fixing this, or are you going to stand there and be a bitch about it?”
“We?” Nate’s hands flew to his hips, like they always did when he was getting ready to really lecture someone, usually Ian. It was funny when he aimed it at Ian. He glared like he wanted to bore holes in my face. “We? All of a sudden we’re a we when you fuck up and need someone to help you hide the evidence before Matthew finds out?”
“You’re the pack warlock,” I said. Not sulkily, I’d deny it to my dying day. “It’s your job.”
“Yeah, and you’re the pack shaman and the pack leader’s mate, so it’s even more your job, and arguably it’s also your job to report anything like this to Matthew immediately.”
“Are you finally admitting I outrank you?”
Nate went bright red, and his mouth flopped open. “You — I’m saying this is your problem!”
“Right, because it’s above your pay grade. Fine. I agree,” I snarled. “I don’t know why I bothered coming to get you in the first place. It’s not like you’re any good at —”
